Esiason on Cousins: ‘Pay Him, Keep Him, He’s Your Quarterback’

WASHINGTON — While Tom Brady and Matt Ryan go head-to-head in the Super Bowl this weekend, Kirk Cousins will be sitting at home thinking about the millions and millions of dollars he will soon get paid.

(Disclaimer: I don’t actually know that’s what he’ll be doing, but that’s what I’d be doing if I was in his shoes.)

In all likelihood, it will be the Redskins who pay him. Maybe it will be in the form of a franchise tag, maybe it will be in the form of a long-term contract, but either way, Cousins is likely just a few months away from a massive paycheck.

It sounds as though if Boomer Esiason was the GM of the Redskins, the deal would already be done. The former quarterback and current analyst joined Grant and Danny at radio row in Houston Wednesday morning, and he expressed no reservations at all about the Redskins quarterback.

The trio delved into a conversation about the looming title game before eventually returning to the Cousins situation, where Esiason further elaborated on the Redskins’ quarterback situation.

“What’s the alternative? Who is the alternative?” Esiason asked. “Jay Gruden likes him. He knows the offense. He has his moments where he might not be playing so well, and a couple of those games unfortunately for them came at home in front of the home fans, but at the end of the day, he’s a stabilizing personality on a team that desperately needs one. And it’s hard to find the replacement for that.

“And I guarantee you that either Kyle Shanahan or [Sean] McVay would want him as their starting quarterback where they start their new jobs. So there [are] alternatives for him if the Redskins let him get out there. I doubt they’ll let him get out there. I would think that they’d be smart enough to give him a four to five-year deal and pay him what he’s worth.”

“I do believe that the Redskins will keep Kirk Cousins,” Esiason finished.

That’s yet another analyst who is betting on Cousins, and, additionally, betting on the Redskins keeping him. We’re getting awfully close to consensus on this topic.